Membership Site Podcast – Page 22 – A podcast about membership sites

How Much Content Should I Really Provide Per Day Inside A Membership Site?

Chances are if you are thinking about creating a membership site, you probably have the idea for two or three articles in your head. Maybe you already have a good chunk of the membership site content written but if you have 5 or 10 articles, how much time does it really buy you in the membership site? I am here to clear that issue up for you because a lot of people get it wrong.

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There are three things to think about when creating membership site content. First, you want to combat both overload and boredom, you want to offer one big thing per week, and just give them one week of content upfront immediately when they join.

Combattng overload and boredom. Most people only think of this from one direction. They think, “I want to combat boredom. I don’t want somebody to join my site and only get one post a month. So, I’m going to give them one post every single day.” So, they combat boredom, but they don’t think about the overload. They don’t think that if somebody joins the site, leaves for a week then comes back, they’re going to be so behind that they will never get caught up and then they were left wondering why everybody dropped out of their membership site because they all became overloaded. I prefer to post less than once per day, but more than once per week. Somewhere in that range is good because if you post once per day, it’s too much, if you post less than once a week, it’s not enough.

That brings me to how much you post exactly. Well, here’s what you do. Post one big thing per week, and by big thing, it could just be one 15-minute video, one 15-minute audio, or a download or a piece of software or something like that. Have one big thing a week, but in the meantime, offer reminders. Have a post or an email message, saying, “This post is coming tomorrow.” Have a thread the next day where they can ask a question or leave a comment. Have it next day where they just watch the video stream on your site that the day after that, they can download it. Deliver one big thing a week but then have reminders afterwards. So, maybe you posted a 15-minute video but then later in the week, offer a 3-minute recap audio, so that if they press for time, they can just listen to the audio.

And the final thing you should know about providing content is give people one week’s worth of content at the start. I used to provide only one day’s worth of content at the start when I first joined, but the problem with this is that when somebody first buys from you, they are the most excited, they are the most interested. They’re not going to be okay with just waiting around because they just thought they want that instant gratification. When somebody buys, give them at least one week’s worth of content at the start and then start dripping out your content from that.

When you’re thinking about how much content you should provide per day, how to schedule or stretch out the content you already have, combat not just boredom but overload as well. Post a few times per week but not once a day. When you post, post one big thing a week, like one video and in the meantime, have reminders, have recaps, ask questions, offer the download to kind of keep people busy but not overwhelmed. And when they first join, give them one entire week’s worth of content upfront.

Your membership site content and your membership site setup are both the easiest parts. Find out why and how at www.membershipcube.com.

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How Do I Get Others to Write Content for Me?

Let’s face it. A lot of people simply are not writers, and even the people who are writers, even the best writers get writer’s block from time to time. So, how do you create enough content to fill up a membership site without getting stuck, without getting bored, or without getting frustrated? I have three simple solutions for you.

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First, promote user comments into full posts, look for a columnist and outsource your writing, outsource your content creation. The easiest way I create membership site content that’s free is to simply look at user comments. I host membership sites inside of blogs. I make a post, you just can comment. If a user leaves a particularly good comment or an important question or even if I post a video and they take notes in the form of a comment, I will copy their comment, paste it as a new post and set the author of that post to that person who left the comment.

What do I end up with? I end up with a review post that somebody else wrote, that I did not have to pay any money for, that someone else will probably find useful. I only do this sparingly, but every now and then, if you have a blog in a membership site and it usually leaves a really video response or takes really good notes or leaves a very insightful comment, consider molding that comment into an entire post. Now, if that person leaves you lots of content over time and they become a trust source of authority for you, consider making them a columnist, the person who leaves multiple posts on your blog. The cool thing about WordPress that a lot of people are not aware of is that you can set user access levels – meaning you can set some of your regular subscribers to be what are called “contributors.” If they want to make a new post, they go and they submit it for approval, you approve it, it becomes live. It’s a very easy way to allow users to write their own post on your blog, but they do not become live until maybe after you’ve edited them and finally put a stamp on it for approval.

And finally, if you’re really stuck for ways of getting content, simply outsource it. Hire an article writer if you found someone who’s writing they like, but what I prefer to do is record an audio about what I want to say, hand it off to a transcriptionist, and then they create the article for me. Not everybody can write but everybody knows how to at least talk on the telephone. If you can talk, you can write.

And those are my three favorite ways of getting other people to write membership site content or me. First, promote user comments in the posts. If there is a repeat user who leaves a lot of good comments, make him a columnist using the user access levels in WordPress. And finally, outsource your content into article writing or transcribing.

Go ahead and create your membership site content right now, then pilot into a membership site using this training at www.membershipcube.com.

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Should My Membership Site Be Service or Content-Based?

I used to be a freelancer. I know many other people who are currently freelancers who are just not happy. They do all kinds of custom jobs and spend a big chunk of their time just figuring out what somebody wants them to create. And the problem with that is that they cannot charge for those hours where they are hashing out what kind of project is going to be made. Not only that, as after the project is done, they end up putting way too much time into it and end up making a lower hourly rate than they’ve thought when they negotiate at the price. A temporary solution to this is to instead of being a freelancer, offer a service-based membership site. I’m going to explain to you in a minute what it means to have a service-based membership site, how to price it, how to package it, and why you should not continue on doing it forever.

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The idea behind a service-based membership site is if you are a graphic designer, you might only be charging, say, $25 for every graphic that you create, but wouldn’t it be a lot better if you offered some kind of a “logo of the month” club, where you charge people, say $25 a month, and for $25 a month, they get access to 10 different logos that they can go and change on their own.

Instead of maybe charging somebody one-off $25 one time for one logo, you are charging them access to this member’s area, and in the process, you’re building up all these logos that in the past, you only could just throw away in the trash because this other person had exclusive rights to them. So, both people win because the buyer wins, because they see, “Oh well I get 10 times as much stuff,” but you also win because you’re building a long-term business, not just working per hour.

Now if you do this, here’s what you do, package it into some kind of a monthly offer. For example, they get 5 or 10 new logos a month for each and every month. Not just one or two, not just pick and choose, but they have no choice, they have to get this big lump to get their package and then you just justify why that bigger package is worthwhile. And then the more you do it, the more you can increase your price because at first, it seems like, “Well, I used to charge $25 per logo. Now, it’s $25 for 10,” but in the future, you can bump it up to $50, plus once per month, you will customize a logo for them. And now, it’s almost a no-brainer offer because now it’s they get $5 per logo plus you customize one for them anyway. Now, you just doubled your hourly rate and you have all these other logos that you dripped out to them that is just already done. And finally, the membership site is better, the content is better because you do it once and it plays out over and over. Those pre-made logos that people can design and customize on their own, you do those once and they will play out for all future subscribers.

If you do a lot of freelancing and you’re looking towards creating your first membership site, consider making it a service-based membership site where you package up these deals and get people on a recurring income stream instead of a one-time payment. But it’s very important that you look into a way to remove yourself from the equation in the future. For example, just maybe you start off where they get the customizable logos plus the one that you make on your own, but in the future, phase yourself out and they purchase it into a membership site with only logos they have to customize on their own.

If you’re trying to make your next membership site or even just thinking about it, go right now to www.membershipcube.com to find out the easiest, best, and fastest way to create a membership site of your very own.

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How Do I Keep My Membership Site From Becoming A Chore?

Over and over, I see people with membership sites and they are literally killing themselves maintaining these sites. I have been in that position in the past, where at one point, I was super excited about getting some membership site going, getting it live, but now, months or even years later, it’s become a chore. That is one of the worst things to happen because your business should be fun, your business should be something that you wake up and get out of bed excited about, not something you have to go and maintain because you have to. To keep your membership site from becoming a chore, follow these three rules: Be aware that membership sites do not have to be recurring, they do not have to cost your members money, and they can and should be fixed-term membership sites.

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Do membership sites have to be recurring? No, they do not. There is totally nothing wrong with making a site that costs $50 for access, somebody pays 50 bucks and they can get into this private protected member’s area where you’ve posted blog posts, videos, audios, and downloads and that’s it. If they refund, they are kicked out, but as long as the payment is okay, they can log in, recover their lost password, and maybe even leave a comment or a two forever.

There’s nothing at all wrong with creating a membership site that costs a one-time fee to join. And if you ever want to make it a two-payment option in the future, you can. If you want to make it a monthly option in the future, you can. But for starters, I would definitely recommend that your first membership site is a single-payment, meaning a not recurring membership site.

The next thing to keep in mind is that membership sites can be free. You have articles floating around out on the internet. You have videos floating around on the internet. Why not package them all up to a membership site and require people not to pay money but to sign up and get into a free membership site. Now, what is the point of this? The point of this is so that you can build an email subscriber list of all these members within the site.

And the final thing you need to know is that whatever your journey is, if it’s taking a single-payment site into a recurring site or a free site into a recurring site, it does not have to continue billing people forever. I know it’s tempting to charge 50 bucks a month forever and ever and ever, but most people stay in a membership site for three to six months. Why not make this membership site build them $50 a month for six months and then they are in for life. So, instead of creating this ongoing membership site, you create a six-month membership course, where there is a clear goal, a clear end date, and instead of them paying every single month, you are financing their journey into figuring out whatever your membership site sells.

Those are my three pieces of advice to keeping your membership site from becoming a chore. Don’t make them recurring at first, don’t always make them cost money, and make them fixed-term memberships, where there is a clear end date.

How long have you been trying to create that fixed-term membership site? Robert will show you how to get that site up and running this week, if not tonight, at www.membershipcube.com.

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What Is Drip Content?

Every now and then, I get asked what drip content is or how do I use drip content in my membership site and why is drip content so important. And the truth is that if I did not have drip content, my membership sites would not be as nearly as successful as they are. And also, the average person’s idea of drip content is completely wrong. So, let’s deal with drip content today.

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The most basic form of drip content is just where your blog delivers content in a sequence. Even if you don’t have a membership site, just a regular WordPress blog out in the open, when you make a post onto a WordPress blog, you can choose to either publish items immediately or in a day in the future. And what makes WordPress really cool is if you schedule a post for next week, it will be scheduled until next week. For the moment, it will not appear at all, but when next week goes around, suddenly that post will go live. That is a very easy way to schedule your content and to deliver your content out in a sequence is simply by changing the date on your next blog post to a date in the future. So, if you have ideas for three new blog posts, instead of simply posting them now, schedule them a week apart. That way, the content shows up gradually over time.

Now, when I talk about drip content within a membership site, many people do this wrong. They simply apply the blog model I just explained and charge for access to that blog. The problem with drip content in this way is that if somebody joins during month one of your site and cancels, then waits several months and comes back on month six, they can see all those back issue archives without paying for the months in between. The correct way to do drip content is drip out the content based on when that person joined.

Now, let me explain. When somebody joins your site, they should just see the first chunk of content you have on your blog, maybe the first week or so of content. But then if they wait a month, they will be able to see the next month of content. But if they cancel at any time, they’re back to zero. If they join one-to-one and they cancel and come back on month six, they should be back at the beginning. That is the big difference between a blog on its own and a membership site in a protected area, which is when somebody joins this membership, their drip starts when they join, and when they cancel, they’re gone.

That is what drip content is, where people don’t get all the information all at once, it gets slowly dripped out for them, but most importantly, inside a membership area, the content is slowly given out based on when they joined and not when you posted that content.

Robert Plank is the creator of Membership Cube and he wants to give you the ultimate solution to drip content at www.membershipcube.com.

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What’s The Easiest Possible Way To Generate Membership Content?

The number one problem people tell me that stops them from creating membership sites by far is not having enough content. Fortunately, there are ways around that when you know what type of content to create. My three favorite kinds of content are to make an overview audio, how-to video, and re-purposing of other content.

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What the heck is an overview audio? Well first of all, to explain that, let me explain the how-to video. How-to video is where you tell something, you lay something out to somebody step by step, preferably in about four steps. If it’s anything from how to set up a WordPress blog, to how to build a bird house, how to lose weight, how to stay organized, take some kind of tasks like that, break it down into four different chunks and show each chunk in video. If that’s a live action video or a screen-capture video, it’s up to you, but show them exactly how to deal with something step by step.

That is the meat of whatever kind of membership site you have, but what helps a different type of person is the overview audio. Before you even get to that step-by-step video, create an audio explaining the four things and why they are important. Show them or tell them the big picture and that way, when they go into the how-to steps, they understand where it’s headed and why, for example, step number two is important in this four-step process that you’re explaining.

For example, if your how-to video showed somebody how to set up a WordPress blog, your audio might explain to them why setting up a WordPress blog is so important. Explain concepts such as themes, plugins, blog posts, usernames and passwords. That way, you can be sure that wherever your user starting point is, if they’re a total newbie or an intermediate user, everybody will get caught up by the time they watch your how-to videos. And then there is no rule that says you have to put audios before videos. You can also have audios after the videos, kind of summarizing what they learned and what the next step is going to be. So, for example, if your videos showed somebody how to set up a blog, then audio, so the next step is up to you to write an entire blog post.

And that brings me to the final way to generate membership content and that is re-purposing other people’s stuff. There’s all kinds of stuff like Private Label Rights out there, where somebody might have already recorded some kind of an advanced video about WordPress, for example, how to install a plugin, and sold rights to that, you can buy the rights and put that right there on your membership site. If somebody teaches something that’s really cool but they don’t offer rights, simply learn it yourself and drip it to your subscribers.

Those are my three favorite ways of generating a membership site content. Create an overview audio that explains the big picture, a how-to video that shows the step by step, and then re-purpose the advanced subjects to give them additional training.

Now, that you know how to create content, I want you to claim your gifts and go to membershipcube.com and see for yourself how easy it is to create your very own membership site.

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Should I Launch A Physical Seminar Or An Online Membership Site

You have authority in a niche. You have some kind of expertise. You have a message to deliver. You have a lot of stuff to say, now you just have to get it out to people. So now, the question is, should you create a digital membership site or host a physical seminar in the real world in a hotel room? The answer may surprise you. There are pros and cons both to physical seminars and to online membership sites and we’re going to go over both of those today and figure out which one is right for you.

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A physical seminar is good for the ego. It gives you a lot of authority. It gives you instant credibility because you have a real-life event and a real-life world, you’ve put down money for some kind of a conference room, you’ve got people in seats, but those are also the same problems – is that seminars are expensive. You have to have the conference room, you have to have a camera, you have to pay a photographer to film you, you have to usually pay for things like the wireless microphone and you have to fly down there yourself, book your own hotel room, and then get people into the seminar. So, it takes a lot of buildup, it might cost you advertising, and then if no one shows up, you might have to cancel the event or you might look like someone who has no authority and now you have your first social proof.

Having a physical seminar is expensive because you have all these costs, including travel, it’s risky because people might not show up, and it’s scary because you have to show up and who knows who might not attend, who knows if there’s some other event in the same hotel room, and who knows if people don’t like what you have to say and leave. It’s also tiring because unless you have other speakers, you have to get up there and present all day for maybe one, two, or even three days. So, a seminar is expensive, risky, scary, and tiring.

Now, what about an online membership site? Well, an online membership site is much cheaper because you don’t have all those costs of the conference room, the travel. You still have to pay things like web hosting and software but this is a lot, lot more expensive than a physical seminar. But the disadvantages for membership sites – is that it’s slower to set up. I mean you could have an idea for an event, for a physical seminar three weeks or a month away and get it scheduled and promote it and have people there in a month, but with a membership site, you might have your membership site out this week but it might take a while to get the same number of subscribers in your membership as you would have attendees at your physical seminar.

It might be slower to start off if you’re brand new at membership sites. It also is not necessarily more work but work stretched out over a longer period of time because with a one-time event, you simply promote it and it’s done. With the membership site, even if the single hint of product, you have to always get new blood into that membership site and get new people buying. So, it’s work stretched out over more time but your big advantage is that you can automate it. You can set up an automatic follow-up sequence, you can set up a Pay-Per-Click account and have the traffic and the marketing all automated. You could have a sales setter that’s online 24 hours a day and have the money trickle in over time.

With the physical seminar or only membership site, which is best for you? The answer is both. You should plan on doing a digital membership now and a physical seminar some time later if that’s the kind of thing you like to do. But do the easy one first. Set up a membership site first because it’s cheaper and you can automate it, and then build up enough of the following to host physical seminars.

Avoid all the mistakes that I did and get your very own membership site set up by 5 o’clock tonight at www.membershipcube.com.